


You Only Want To Socialize

by CBlue



Category: We Are In Fics Universe (WAIFU)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Happy belated Halloween, I'm posting this days late but this is my annual Spooky-Fic-For-Friends, Minor Character Deaths, Minor Character Raehn, Multi, Zombies and the Like, stay spoopy, the entire band plays this soundtrack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 22:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21309382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CBlue/pseuds/CBlue
Summary: Being dead is no fun. Good thing the dead are allowed one day out to play. If only there wasn't some pesky necromancer raising an entirely different dead to slay all the living.
Relationships: Cee/Tom Holland, Doctor PJ/Aquabats, Pali of the Seize/Nick O. Lodeon
Kudos: 1





	You Only Want To Socialize

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CharalampidisGruber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharalampidisGruber/gifts), [Barktooth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barktooth/gifts), [Bonymaloney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonymaloney/gifts), [The Nicholas](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The+Nicholas).

> Happy Belated Spooky, y'all. School and Work on the ye Olde Halloween day prevented this from being posted sooner but you've got it.

The wind howled on this fine October evening. It sang the tune of skeletons coming out to socialize. Ghouls and creeps from the depths sauntered and laughed their way into the moral realm. Candles hidden in the mouths of grinning pumpkins lit the way into town from the graveyard from which they all had risen from. As the undead crossed the threshold of the graveyard, they were given human form on this one night as the moon hung overhead.

Cee was recently deceased. She could still smell the flesh rotting on her bones. Pali said that would go away, but Cee doubted it. How could you ever grow used to the smell of your own body dying? How she had died alluded her. All of the corpses in the graveyard knew their deaths except for her.

Sighing, Cee held her chin in her hands. PJ had already gone off, promises of fraternizing and telling Pali and her about it when she got back. Tyler’s cackling promised hijinks for the mortals that dared to stroll this night. It was only Pali who had loitered behind at Cee’s melancholy.

“Cee?” Pali called for her gently, “why don’t you come with the rest of us?’

Rolling her eyes, Cee gave a soft huff of breath. Or whatever was the ghoulish equivalent. It traveled on the night air, creating smoke like a dragon. “I won’t third wheel your date,” she teased lightly.

Pali’s cheeks, despite being mostly bone while still in the sanctuary of the graveyard, flushed. “It’s not a date,” she argued, “it’s just fun once a year.”

PJ had said the same thing about her mustachioed man. What Raehn did was fun, what PJ and Pali experienced but once a year was part of living that Cee yearned to remember.

Shrugging her shoulders, Cee kept her gaze away from Pali’s own heavy eyes. “Just… I don’t remember any of it,” she whispered her confession, surprised that more excuses about third wheels did not tumble from her tongue. “I… I don’t remember my family, my friends, where I lived…”

Eyes wide despite being mostly sockets, Cee finally turned to face Pali. “What if I pass my own mother on the street and don’t even know it? Did I even have a mom?”

Pali clicked her tongue, taking a seat beside Cee. “Oh, honey,” she drew across her tongue, “it’s all in the past. You can’t worry about it now.”

“And what else am I supposed to worry about?” Cee spat bitterly. “An afterlife of purgatory? Eternally rotting away in a box with other corpses until Kingdom Come?”

“Cee,” Pali reprimanded, “you ain’t gonna get anywhere with that talk.” Her own eyes became downcast. “I know it’s… well, not any of us asked for it. And I don’t know why we’re the ones to stay when everyone else moves on.” Sighing, Pali tucked her straggly strands of hair behind her ear. “But it is. We can’t change what hand we’re dealt. We can only change how we play.”

Feeling small like the young child Cee was sure she once was, she hugged her arms around herself. “I don’t want to play, Pali.”

A bittersweet smile forged from years of this existence between coils, Pali chuckled a pitiful laugh. “There’s no gettin’ up from the table.” She stood, brushing her bony fingers across the material that clung to her legs. “I’ve gotta go meet Nick or he’ll come lookin’ for me,” she teased, but this time Cee could read her heartache across her face like a well-loved novel with a sad ending.

“Have fun,” Cee quipped and found herself genuinely meaning it. Pali gave her a wave before crossing the threshold. What once was brown and grey hairs clinging to her bared skull was now a mane, full-bodied. Eyes full of life and a hope for tonight alight under the moon and candles. Plump and plush flesh full of pumping veins and beating heart graced along the sidewalk.

Cee longed for the memory of that. Perhaps that was why she was so reluctant to create new ones. To have but one night of breathing in cold air. Feeling goosebumps prickle along her skin as autumn kissed her. She would never know what she was missing. Perhaps, in this way, she could survive this. She could survive rotting for eternity if she never knew what living was.

It was in that moment she stood. Call it curiosity or begrudging whatever had taken her life from before, but she furrowed her brow. She set her shoulders, squaring her stance. Heavy footfalls marched like one of the parades passing the cemetery. It was a gallows walk, but she was killing any possibility of keeping her sanity. Of not longing for something beyond a brick gate.

Moving her foot over the threshold, Cee could smell the magic in the air. She looked over herself. Pale skin reflected under the moonlight. Short locks of auburn hair assumingly framed her face. She wondered if she looked like this before.

A pang rattled in her gut at the thought of before. Would it be better to walk about with this face? What if she did see her mother? Would she weep? Would she embrace this day of the Dead Walk and hold her? Tell her all the things she couldn't remember?

Cee could remember arms. Warm arms embracing her, holding her dear. It was the only memory she had. More of a sensation, less motherly and more… something she could not quite name. Hugging herself in place of those phantom arms, She took careful steps along the sidewalk, strolling an unfamiliar path through sight alone. People shouted and laughed and ran. Cee felt like a ghost among them, but she was, wasn’t she? A ghost among a lively city.

Whether she knew where she was going was irrelevant once she found herself in a small bar. It was a ways off, fewer people as they were in the streets with jubilee. Inside the bar was the flies, the loners, and Cee counted herself as among them. Taking a seat at the bar, she wondered if she had been here before. Been to any bar before… before…

Shaking herself of the thought, Cee was met with the eyes of a bartender. Tired and worn, aged despite the youth to his features. He smiled kindly. “Want the Usual, hon?”

“Usual?” Cee furrowed her brow, trying to find any trace of familiarity to the man’s face.

He chuckled, shaking his head. “‘S’what we call the Pumpkin Rum we serve durin’ the festival.” The explanation was simple enough, but the hope Cee secretly held to her chest deflated quickly.

Cee nodded, taking in a deep breath. “Please,” she spoke like a whisper, “I could use it.”

This time a genuine laugh rippled through the bartender. “Couldn’t we all?” He quipped before turning to make her drink.

Looking around her at the patrons that were her only company, Cee could not help but already miss it. For when the night was over, she would be back in that damn graveyard. Would she forget again after crossing that threshold? Would she lose these memories too with only the sensation of a cold glass in her hands?

Pitiful. Sad. Cee felt the rum burn down her throat. She didn’t like that feeling or taste. She would prefer ghostly arms and earthworms in her mouth, but this was living. This was what she had crossed over for this night.

“You look famil’r,” a slur came from beside her. She turned, spotting a gangly man around her age swaying in his seat. “H’ve I seen you b’fore?” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. 

“No,” Cee answered with hesitation. “I don’t think so.” She looked around awkwardly. Surely, she did not know this man. Surely, she was not some well known serial killer or something, known about this sleepy hollow. Anything was better than that, being known. 

That was untrue. Cee could see her punishment being to walk a graveyard forever, but having people  _ miss _ her was an unbearable thought. She tried to keep her gaze away from the other as he leaned forward. She could smell the alcohol on his breath more than the smoke in the bar and the rot in her mouth.

“No,” he argued again, “I’ve seen you som’wh’re.” Adamant, he pointed a crooked finger toward her. Grime was under his nails like dirt, and Cee wondered if perhaps this was a spirit so drunk on spirit that he forgot himself and where he had crept from this night.

“Hey,” a voice so gentle and yet firm rang from behind them, drawing both of their attentions. “I don’t think she wants to talk to you.”

Turning fully to face the stranger, Cee felt her gut punched, innards spilling forth in a confused display as something tore straight through her. The drunkard waved them off, turning back to his own drink and devices. Cee felt that accursed heat flush through her face.

“I hope he wasn’t bothering you too much,” he spoke kindly, smile just as sweet.

Shaking her head as her throat closed around her words, Cee had to take a moment to compose herself. “I… I was fine, but thank you.” She finally let out.

His smile was bright and welcoming like a candle guiding souls through the night. It was something strange. A familiar stirring in this land of the living, as if this feeling had belonged to her once. He gestured to the seat beside her. “Could I sit next to you?”

Cee raised an eyebrow. “So trade one man for another?” She teased naturally, a smile at her lips even as she moved for him to take the seat beside her.

“Well,” he shrugged, “hopefully I’m a bit more polite.” A twinkle in his eye, the sort that Pali got in her eyes when she spoke about that mortal she would rise for every October. “Sorry, you just… remind me of someone I used to know.”

“Oh?” Cee turned away, back to her drink and unable to bear his gaze. “Someone important?”

At these words he became quiet. His eyes downcast and his thumbs twirled about for a moment. “The most important person in my life.” His forlorn words ripped at the unbeating heart that resided in Cee’s chest. Shaking his head, he gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “I came out to have a night to remember her. Remember the dead like we’re supposed to on this night and told myself remembering would help me move on.”

“Trust me,” Cee spoke gently, “forgetting doesn’t help you move on either,” she could not meet his eyes and her words wavered at the truth, at the hurt in her own tone.

Another chuckle and this time the stranger turned to face her again. “I don’t think I could ever move on anyway.” He pursed his lips for a moment before holding out his hand. “I’m Tom.”

Holding her hand out in turn, Cee smiled kindly. “My friends call me Cee.”

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow, mouth quirking into a smile. “And I’m your friend?”

Cee grinned, taking a sip of her drink. “For now,” she quipped.

Another laughter, this one much brighter than the prior conversation, rippled through the space between them like a stone in a pond. “Well, I’ll do my best to stay that way.” He took a sip of his own drink.

“You’re doing good so far,” Cee’s words were half tease, half genuine. She hadn’t expected to make any sort of conversation on this side of the gate, and yet here she was with a complete stranger. Stranger still that this strange should not seem so strange. Another feeling of familiarity biting at her brain like fish on a corpse in a lake.

Flashes of something Cee could not remember, something akin to a nightmare, struck through her heavily. She blinked for a moment to steady herself, but a long enough moment for her companion to recognize the change in her demeanor.

“Are you alright?” He asked carefully, hands wanting to move but also frozen in uncertainty.

Giving a shaky smile, Cee nodded eventually. “I’m just fine,” she waved him off. “Just the night, right?”

Shrugging, Tom became quiet for a moment again. Cee was quickly learning this signaled a memory of a former love for the man. “She loved Halloween,” he explained, “she used to say she loved getting scared. Loved being reminded that she was alive.”

Just like her companion of loneliness, Cee too became quiet. “...do you think the dead can feel fear too?”

“I think she’s watching over me,” he confessed earnestly, “so if she’s here, she must feel fear too. She’s got to.” It seemed more a plea than a belief, but Cee could not begrudge him either.

“That’s a nice thought,” Cee said eventually, trying to turn her thoughts to something happier. To bred the companionship that Pali, PJ, and Tyler constantly found themselves in this time of year.

A scream, startling and piercing through the night, broke through their shared silence. Tom furrowed his brow, standing along with a few of the other bar patrons. Cee made to stand too, but Tom stopped her. Perhaps it was some near outdated chivalry, or perhaps something else that resided within Tom that made him ask her to stay so silently. And perhaps it was something far deeper that kept Cee in place.

Just as Tom and a few of the other patrons grew closer to the window to investigate, a young woman ran straight into the glass, It reverberated, shaking as a consequence of her force. Her mouth frothed and her arm bled as she slammed her head into the glass. Then once more, repeatedly until the glass continuously shook and deep blow stood on her forehead. Everyone stood agape until the barkeeper picked up the phone to call the police. Perhaps it was some prank, they whispered.

Cee stood, squinting as she looked over this woman. She moved until she stood right beside Tom. The woman mumbled something, something disturbed and deeper than 6-feet of dirt. Cee’s eyes widened. “Ho-?”

Before she could ask, the woman shouted her mumblings. It was guttural nonsense to the other patrons, but Cee knew that deep speak. Was born into her new life as the undead knowing it. The Sounds of the Dead.

“ _ RETuuurN Tooo uuS! _ ”

“What the hell?” The drunkard spat as he made for the door. “I’mma get her off your door, Christian.”

“Gomez, get the fuck back in here!” Christian, the bartender, hissed even as Gomez moved closer.

Cee stepped forward, only to be stopped by Tom. She jerked to face him as he held his arm in front of her. “He can’t go out there!” She pressed.

“She’s not well,” Tom argued with a furrowed brow, “you can’t go out there.”

“Neither can he!” She argued. Looking just as Gomez closed the door behind him, Cee made to move again before Tom held her back. His eyes looked apologetic, and Cee could see his reasoning but there was no way he could know.

Almost helpless, the patrons watched through the window as Gomez began shouting at the woman. She turned hallowed eyes to him as her mouth gaped open dangerously. Cee’s breath stilled even as she did not need it. “To-”

Before the name could leave her, like a wolf lunging for prey the woman leaped at Gomez. He screamed, his voice breaking the air unlike the woman’s before him. Now sharp teeth ripped into Gomez before the two bodies fell from the patrons’ line of sight. Some gasped, one fainted, Christian paled and stumbled over his words.

“Cee,” Tom whispered, looking to her with wide eyes. “You-”

Breaking free of the arm that had her, Cee felt her throat clench, tighten like a living muscle. “I’m so sorry,” she shook her head before rushing to the door, closing it with a slam behind her. People ran across her vision, undead things that should be living on this night crept and rushed for prey. A hunger ran deeply on this night. Cee did not feel it herself but she could sense it.

Running, running for Pali, for Tyler, for PJ. Perhaps they would know. They had been wiser to both worlds than Cee had been. She had to find them. They had to solve this.

Ghosts, ghouls, shrieked past Cee’s ears. One such being stopped her, shouting in that dead language. She shouted back, bearing teeth that were no longer half rot. Just as soon as she had set it on its way, fooling it off the smell of living flesh with the stench of the foul language, she felt arms wrap around her, dragging her away from another running horde, another screaming mob.

“What the hell was that?” Tom hissed at her, eyes piercing and wide.

“What are you doing here?” She spat back instead. “You’re supposed to be-”

“What?” He argued, “and leave you running around and hissing at those things?” Tom looked over her shoulder. “What are those things? What are you shouting at them?”

Shaking her head, Cee tried to move herself away from his grasp. “I don’t know.” She stomped her foot, trying to whisper and not draw attention to them. “I just need to find my friends. They’ll know.”

Another scream, a distraction just enough to allow Cee to slip from his grasp. “It’s not safe out here,” she explained, looking for an opening between the blood and mayhem of what was once a peaceful night.

“It’s not safe for you either!” Tom argued, stepping out and following her into the moonlight.

Yes, the moonlight. It finally shone from the clouds, glimmering over moving and unmoving corpses alike. This time it reflected off of Cee’s hair. What once was a fully formed woman, the woman who had stepped out of the gate, was now the corpse that had stood before the gate.

Tom’s eyes widened as the moon revealed the truth. What once was pale skin reflected was now the rotting flesh that she would never cease to smell. Cee looked at herself, sunken eyes wide as she looked to Tom. “I-”

“You’re one of them?” He did not step back, but his voice was just as breathless.

“No,” she said harshly, “not like them.” Her brow furrowed before she shook her head. “I mean I… I don’t know why they’re… and I’m not.” Helplessly, Cee shrugged.

“But-”

“Cee!” A shout came from across the way, Pali and who Cee assumed to be Nick running toward them.

“Pali! The moonlight!” Cee tried to warn, but as soon as Pali stepped out of the shadows she too succumbed to whatever dark magic had corrupted this night. The mane fell apart revealing only the bones that had been left on her corpse.

She gasped, steps screeching to a halt as she eyed Cee with wide sockets. Cee could hear the whisper from behind her as Nick spoke, “I fucking knew it.”

Cee would save those questions for later. She rushed to her friend. “What’s happening, Pali?” She looked around them, trying to lead Nick and Pali back to the sanctuary of the alley.

“I don’t know!” Pali panicked, trying to turn to see that Nick was still there, she turned to face Cee’s undead face, to face Tom. “Who is he?”

“Tom,” he answered, voice strangled for a moment before he cleared his throat. “I… well, I don’t know what’s happening either.”

Nick, or the man who Cee still assumed to be Nick, seemed to have his interest piqued. “Oh, you too?” He asked curiously.

Cee and Pali’s faces flushed as Tom furrowed his brow in confusion. Before he could ask, Cee cut his words off. “We need to find Tyler and PJ. Make sure they’re safe.”

“Were you able to throw them off too?” Pali asked, leaning toward Cee as if there were any more secrets to keep.

“Yeah,” Cee swallowed carefully, “they speak our language but they don’t seem…”

Nick intruded into their not quite whispered conversation. “Intelligent?”

Blinking, Cee and Pali looked to Nick before staring at each other. “Yeah,” Pali nodded, “I was thinking that.”

“It’s like there not quite either.” Cee observed, watching as more of them passed. “Not dead but not undead either.” Putting her hand to her chin, she tried to think. Puzzle whatever magic despite her limited knowledge of all worlds.

“What if they’re not like you?” Tom proposed. “I mean, you said they aren’t, so maybe they were raised another way…?”

Clicking her tongue, Pali smiled. “Oh, honey. We weren’t raised. We’ve been like this for a while.” Her drawl was thick as she spoke.

Smiling sheepishly, Cee nodded. “Well, some of us longer than others.” She paused, blinking. “Wait,” she held her finger up, “I think he’s onto something.”

“Like what?” Pali questioned, eyes not being able to stop from wandering to where chaos freely roamed the screen.

“Well,” Cee started, “we died and ended up where we were, right?” Peering around the corner, Cee watched a once corpse feast upon the flesh of some helpless middle-aged man. “What if these guys were dead but moved on, but brought back, and that’s why they’re not all here?”

Humming, Nick nodded. “I mean, I don’t know much about zombies, but that sounds fair.”

“Nicholas!” Pali gasped. “We’re not zombies!”

“I was talking about them,” Nick calmly rebutted, merely shrugging off the accusation. Pali could flush only from the sanctuary of the alley’s shadow. “Anyway, if there’s something raising them, we just take out their commander, right?”

Tom moved closer, making it so that all four of them were peering around the corner. “I mean, it’s a good a guess as any, but how are we going to find the commander?”

“I don’t mean to be a cliche,” Pali interrupted them, “but maybe follow the conveniently placed lightning?”

The lightning did indeed crash in a stereotypical sort of fashion. Despite having no memory of her life, Cee did retain something akin to knowledge of pop culture. It was disheartening to remember something so trivial, but perhaps in this moment, it was helpful. Turning to the others with a firm nod, Cee took in a shaking breath.

“Let’s go,” she exhaled.

The trek there was easy. Pali and Cee spoke in that language of theirs as they made their way through hordes and crowds. They kept to the shadows when faced with mortals screaming with fear and let the moonlight and groans sweep them into the wandering corpses. It wasn’t until a familiar face with an unfamiliar crowd surrounding her did their trek take a halt.

“PJ?” Pali called out to the woman. She stood proudly in the moonlight with its pale gleam cascading across her features.

Smirking, she turned away from the band she was speaking to. “Oh, hey.” She waved them over. Awkwardly and with uncertainty, the group crossed the street to meet her. “I’ve always wanted you to meet these guys.” Gesturing to the band behind her, PJ smiled. “It was all fun and games until the Commander got his ass bit.”

The Commander presumably shrugged and gave a few nonchalant words in the groans of the dead. Cee blinked as she took in their uniforms and guards that they wore. It was stylish in an odd sort of way.

“So, where are you heading? Back to the cemetery?” PJ inquired as she looked over their motley crew.

“No,” Tom spoke up. “We’re following the lightning. We’re trying to stop this.” He spoke gently, almost trying to persuade her without even asking.

PJ raised an eyebrow. Even on her half-decayed corpse, it looked as if she wore glitter, sparkling like some ethereal being. “Who is he?” She pointed, directing the question to Pali and Cee.

Obviously, this meant PJ was familiar with Nick. It wasn’t a surprise to Cee, not with how PJ had spoken about Pali meeting with Nick on this night. From what Cee could gather, while most were going out for kicks, Pali had honest to the dead found love in the afterlife, even if her love resided on the other side of those gates. PJ seemed to trust Nick as much as Pali did, and that was enough for Cee.

“He’s with me,” Cee finally spoke up, “he’s helping us. We have no clue what we’re going to face when we get there.” She gestured to the thundering and clashing lightning that only seemed to increase in intensity the longer the night grew.

Nodding with a confidant stance, PJ turned to wink at the band that had swarmed her and her affections. “I think we’ve got some rocking to do, boys.”

Instruments seemed to be pulled from nowhere all at once, and as if there was some soundtrack needed to their final march of the house that the lightning originated from, the Aquabats, as Cee learned their names to be, created a jam that powered their gaits, powered their steps, crafted their formations. Whilst they had no firepower beyond their bare arms, they had number. There had to be strength in numbers.

It was a small and quaint sort of house that the lightning seemed to circle around like a cyclone. Wind howled in a way that drowned the instruments, struck them from the hands of the Aquabats, and left them bared too to whatever was to come next. Gulping, Cee reached a shaking hand for the doorknob.

Tom’s hand, warm unlike her cold corpse had ever been, enclosed around her trembling hand. “Hey,” he spoke softly, “we can do it together.” Encouragingly, Tom squeezed her hand. It was familiar, warm, and strengthening. She inhaled sharply, tightening her grasp on the doorknob and twisting.

The door opened into a small living room. The house was nothing unusual save for the thundering power that resonated from the entire house. Squinting against the force of the wind, Cee trudged her steps through the threshold.

“It’s- so- hard- to-” Pali’s words were broken as her mangily hair thwipped across her face, “_move!_” She finally shouted as they breached through the living room and into the kitchen. That seemed to be the source. What sort of vile thing would they find? A witch and her brew? A mad scientist? Some abominable demon casting forth shadows to destroy the Earth?

“Tyler?!” Cee shouted, gasping even as the wind stole her breath.

It was indeed Tyler, all too familiar and gaze yet unlike anything she had ever seen. His eyes were wild and his jaw askew as words spilled forth in the language of something much more ancient than that tongue of the dead.

“What are you doing?!” Pali shouted with equal vigor, trying to move closer despite the gale force that stemmed from Tyler and the book he read from.

“Tryin’ to create some mischief,” he spoke in his own voice. His gaze raised from the book to meet theirs before rolling his eyes. Returning his vision to the book, he scoffed, “and help true love or what the fuck ever.”

Maybe there was a scoff, a gasp of breath. It was hard to hear anything beyond shouting and the wind and thunder. “True love?” This was Tom’s voice; Cee was sure of it. “How can any of what you created tonight be for true love?”

“Ask him,” Tyler pointed jaggedly with his chin. This time he returned to his book, chanting louder and growling the words. Everyone in unison turned to where he pointed. Cee felt something unnatural shiver down her spine.

Turning, Cee was more than shocked to see Nick standing before them, glasses refracting the light of the lightning in a dangerous way. Pali gasped, clasping her hand to her mouth. “Nick?” She whispered.

“I did it for us,” Nick moved forward, taking Pali’s frozen hands into his own. “I had to find a way to make sure we could be together.” He pleaded with her to understand.

“_So you had Tyler kill everyone?!_” PJ placed her hands to her hips, gesturing to Tyler who still stood spewing words forth from the book.

Tom moved in a subtle way toward Tyler. Feet sliding on the floor, but Nick heard it. His face turned with a jerk to face Tom. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?” One of the fetching bandmates that PJ had brought asked, challenging Nick in this moment.

A more dangerous spike than the thunder crashed through the house. “Because Tyler’s not the power source, and neither is that book.”

From the tips of his fingers, blue lightning crackled like the outer edges of a storm. His eyes were unblinking as if it were the eye of a hurricane. He looked from Tom back to Pali. “I just wanted to be with you. If it takes breaking a few eggs so I can have an afterlife with you…”

“Those aren’t eggs!” Cee shouted. “Those were people! People you killed to what? Be damned forever?”

“Is it damned if I’m blessed with the love of my life?” Nick was confident in his words in an almost chilling manner.

“Oh, Nicholas,” Pali sighed, shaking her head gently. “This is… I love you, but this is all wrong.” She looked back to Tyler. “I know you like causing mischief but this is murder, Tyler.”

Shrugging, Tyler closed the book. “Eh, I was bored anyway. Same faces in that graveyard until she showed up.” This time, Tyler pointed to Cee with his jaw.

Cee felt something shift inside her. Bones clicking in an awareness she had not remembered until now. Slowly, with a creeping feeling encasing her like a vine, Cee turned to face Nick again. Where once she did not recognize this face of cold emotion, now it was a stark memory. A flash of lightning, the whispering of those same ancient words.

A life flashing before her eyes and Cee stumbled. Tom caught her fumbling form. His eyes widened in concern. “Are you okay?” He asked worriedly.

“He killed me,” Cee whispered in horror, body shaking. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed.

“What?” Pali gasped, stepping away from Nick’s figure. “You didn’t.” She shook her head. “Tell me you didn’t.”

Nick sighed, shaking his head and looking away. “The ritual required a heart full of love. A love powerful enough to reach through the veil.” He looked back to Cee. Some levels of remorse, some pity held in his eyes but Cee did not want it. “I’m sorry, Ciana.”

“Ciana?” Tom’s words were a stolen breath, his arms tightening around Cee. “N-no,” his voice shook before his burning eyes turned to Nick like an inferno’s licking tongue. “No, not my Ciana.”

Another sigh, less powerful and just as sad, “she was so happy and I needed that.” He turned his chin up, glasses catching the lightning again. “I wanted that.” He held his hand out, lightning crackling and reaching for the book still held in Tyler’s hands.

“Youch!” Tyler shouted, shaking off the burns that the lightning left on his palms. “Bitch,” he mumbled as Nick took over reading from the book.

“Nick, no!” Pali shouted, hands reaching out for Nick’s arms. “Nicholas!”

He turned, eyes taking the form of orbs of lightning, energy cackling as his mouth read the words his eyes no longer looked at. His gaze was almost soulless save for when it met with Pali’s.

“This isn’t the way,” she whispered, “you’ve taken away other’s happiness for ours. That isn’t worth it.” Gently, Pali closed her eyes to shield here gaze from the lightning, moved closer to Nick until her forehead rested against his. “We would have always found a way.”

“I couldn’t chance that,” Nick whispered softly. Kissing her forehead, he drew back. The words poured forth loudly, confidently as the lightning crashing grew louder.

Tom stood, releasing Cee completely as he tried to move forward. “You killed her-!” He made to push, shove, something or anything to retaliate against the gaping hole in his chest as old wounds were torn asunder.

“Thomas!” Cee shouted over the thunder, holding him back in much the same way he had when they had faced the first of this night together. “Thomas, no.” She could feel tears, despite having no true eyes, begin to burn at her face. “We can’t stop this. It’s too late.”

The wind picked up, swirling and nearly carrying everyone away. PJ and the Aquabats held on to one another, Tyler tightened his grasp on the counter as the pages were ripped from the book by the storm. Cee and Tom clutched to one another, nearly falling to the floor to keep themselves from flying away. Pali tightened her grip, clasped her eyes shut, and held to Nick. Whatever would come of this madness, of this storm and of this night of the dead, they would all have to face it.

Mourning her remembered life, mourning the lives of those who would never attain or retain their awareness, Cee had learned her lesson on this night.

Spooky, scary skeletons were never meant to socialize.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So there ends this spooky tale. Why did Tom not recognize his beloved Ciana? Was it Nick's necromancy? Or something else beneath the surface? Why was Tyler able to control Nick's power? Or perhaps he created some of his own? Is PJ truly the Queen of the Aquabats? Who knows? Certainly, not I.


End file.
